His little girl saved him.
He cared for the new baby as much as his wife would let him, but she was head-over-heels in love with with the baby girl. Mary did everything for her and more, until John would insist that Mary give him the baby so she could lay down and rest for a couple hours. He taught Sam and Dean how to fold their own laundry and load the dishwasher. He cooked dinner and packed lunches and tried to be there as much as his job would allow.
When that horrible night happened it was as if his soul had been ripped from his body, and even though he still had three other souls who were depending on him, he couldn't make it past the immense storm of grief that was inside of him.
The baby would lay in her crib crying, while he was laying curled on his side in bed, until one of the boys would come into the room and lift the baby out of the crib and take her into the other room.
One day there was a knock on the door and Pastor Jim stood there. "You're coming to stay with me," is all he said, and he packed up the baby's equipment, and supervised the boys packing their clothing and things, and then helped John pack his own clothing. Jim had driven the kids in his van and John followed behind him, lost in thought and grief.
They spent the summer at Pastor Jim's, where there was an endless parade of people from church coming in, to bring food and to take care of the baby. She was held and cooed over and bounced in the arms of a dozen different old ladies who were all too happy to have a baby to care for.
The boys went to church with Pastor Jim and he gave them chores and enrolled them in the short summer camps that the church hosted, to give them something to do.
In the evenings when everyone had gone home to their own families, the pain would hit him the hardest. When there was a bustle of people in the house he could listen to the talking and stay distracted, but when it got quiet, that's when his grief would rise up again.
The evenings after dinner had been their special time. John and Mary would sit on the sofa together, before the kids came they would just snuggle, and after kids they would watch the kids playing on the floor in front of them. Mary would hold the baby and they would talk to her and play with her until she fell asleep, and then Mary would put her in her crib and come back to John to sit for a short while longer. As the boys got older this got harder to do, because there was homework to help with and baths to supervise and sports practice to get to.
In the fall of that year they found a small apartment to rent in a town near where Pastor Jim lived. John enrolled the boys in school and perfunctorily went to the back-to-school nights and student orientations, but his heart wasn't in it, and his boys knew.
The first thing they did when they got home from school was check on the baby. Dean got home first, and she was usually napping when he came in. She would wake up and fuss and he would get her up and change her diaper, fix her a bottle, and then do his homework while holding her on his lap. Which couldn't have been easy, since she was a squirmy 11 month old by then, and becoming mobile. Then when Sam got home from school, he would take over with Aly so that Dean could make dinner.
The evenings were spent with one or both of the boys on the floor playing with Aly and watching her as she learned to sit up, and then scoot, and then crawl. Almost as soon as she learned to crawl, she pulled herself to a standing position, and then started to cruise. Cruising was when a toddler walked by holding onto things, the edge of the sofa, or a table, or holding your hand. John would be sitting in his armchair with a mostly empty glass of whiskey in his hand, and Aly would be standing at the sofa, holding on to the edge of the cushion, and taking little baby steps toward him. Then she would reach the end of the sofa, and let go, and for a long moment you didn't know if she was going to fall or step forward.
She would take a step forward, and her little hand would land on his knee and grip his pants, and she would look up at him, and then he would glance down at her. When she saw that she had caught his eye she would give him a big toothless grin. The times that she fell, she fell straight down onto her bottom, and sometimes she would sit at his feet and play with the laces of his boots for a few minutes.
Aly's first word was "De" which meant Dean. John supposed he should have been jealous, but it made sense really, since Dean was the one who cared for her better than, and more than he did. He still couldn't bring himself to interact with her that much. Dean took care of her the most- Dean took care of everyone in the family. And the letter "D" was very easy for a young toddler to say, so it made sense. Mary and John had often joked about how both boys had said "Dada" first, before they said "Mama", although it was because the letter D is easier to say than M. Mary had joked that her little girl was going to say Mama first, she just had to, because they were both females.
Dean had had to sit down and talk to John, and tell him in so many words that he had to get his head out of his ass and start paying attention to Aly during the day and interacting with her. John would change her diaper and feed her, but those tasks were done by rote. He still spent most days parked in the armchair with the t.v. on and a glass of something at his side.
One morning the storm door had been left open and the screen door had not latched properly because Sammy had been in a hurry to catch the bus. John had gone to the kitchen to fill his glass, and hadn't heard the latch of the door as it caught again after being opened and closed.
He hadn't even been aware that Aly was gone.
Several minutes later, there was a knock on the door. He considered ignoring it, but the storm door was still open and whoever was there could see that the t.v. was on through the window in the screen door.
He stood up and went to the door, and it was the neighbor who lived a couple houses down, holding a child in her arms.
He opened the door, confused for a moment.
"Yes?" he said.
"Hello, John, I was out front weeding my hydrangeas and I glanced over and saw her toddling down the street. I'm aftrad she got into my potting soil before I could stop her, she took a handful and crammed it into her mouth," Mrs. Smith chuckled, "I forgot how toddlers put everything in their mouths."
John realized then that Mrs. Smith was holding Aly, his daughter, who had seemingly grown into a toddler overnight, and he felt like he was Rip Van Winkle, waking up from a heavy sleep of months. Aly had dirt around her mouth, her nose was running a little, and her hair was wild around her head, but she grinned at him with that big open-mouth smile and held her arms out to him and said, "Da!"
"Look at that, she wants you!" Mrs. Smith smiled, "That's so precious. I know sometimes they're able to slip away from us, you'd better look into some child safety locks for your doors. Thank goodness she wasn't on the street during rush hour, she could have been hit by a car."
Aly leaned forward to John and he took her from Mrs. Smith.
"Well, I've got to go," Mrs. Smith said awkwardly.
"Oh," John said, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," she waved a hand at him as she walked down the sidewalk, "Tell your boys they can come rake my yard if they want to make a little money."
"I will," John said.
...She Could Have Been Hit By A Car...
The realization that his daughter, his baby, his little girl who was his link to Mary, had been outside, walking down the street, and he didn't even realize it, and she could have died, hit him like a ton of bricks.
He turned away from the door and started to cry. His baby could have died and he hadn't even known she left the house. He walked over to the armchair and sat down heavily in it, holding the baby, and she looked at him with concern. She stood up on his lap, put her hands on his cheeks which were wet with tears and said "Da," in a quiet voice. Then she put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder.
Slowly he got control over himself. He set her on his lap and watched her as she played with the buttons on his plaid shirt and rubbed her face on the softness of the flannel. He noticed that her hair was flyaway and tangled and it looked like their was food crusted in it. She still had dirt around her mouth.
"Let's give you a bath," he said.
She asked, "De?" and he realized it was because Dean was the one who bathed her.
"No, Dean's at school," he told her, "Your old man is gonna give you a bath today."
He carried her to the bathroom and went through the motions, and it all came back to him from when the boys were little, adjusting the temperature of the water so it was lukewarm, getting out a clean diaper and the soap and shampoo beforehand, finding the little pink towel and washcloth, and finally undressing her and putting her in the tub. He talked to her as he bathed her, telling her what he was doing before he did it.
He lifted her out of the tub and dried her, diapering her and picking up the tiny baby comb. He carried her to the living room wrapped in a dry towel. He sat her on his lap again and gently worked the comb through her fine hair, teasing out the knots, until it lay smooth against her head.
"There," he said, "All done."
She leaned on his chest, and then looked up at him and gave him her big toothless grin again, and said, "Da," then she looked down and put her thumb in her mouth contentedly.
Just then his heart opened up and flooded with love for her, and it somehow pushed the grief down, not to be buried, but to be managed so that it didn't consume him any more. He could live again, and function, he had to, for his sons, but most of all for this little baby girl who every day looked more and more like the baby pictures he remembered seeing of Mary. He had to raise her and keep her safe and care for her twice as much because Mary wasn't here to do it.
When Dean came home from school, he found John on the sofa, laying down asleep, with Aly sleeping on his chest, snuggled in his arms. And when they woke up that afternoon, John followed behind Dean learning everything about Aly that Dean knew, and he took over taking care of her. He became her father in more than just name, and she brought him back to life and into the land of the living.
His little girl saved him.